Autumn Glory Part 16

Adoration of the Holy One; forgetfulness of earth; pardon for sin; union in prayer; equality of all men in the light of eternal promises.

The tones rang out into s.p.a.ce and interlocked with a vibration, and were as garlands flung from one belfry to another. Among the toilers of the fields, cattle drivers, sowers, there were but few who did not obey the summons. Along roads deserted all the week were to be seen families hastening, pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing one another, of those who lived at the remotest portions of the parish; while those who lived nearer took it more leisurely. On the ca.n.a.l, which, broadening at the foot of the church, forms the quay of Sallertaine, boats were constantly moving hither and thither.

Towards evening the bells had ceased; the frequenters of inn parlours too had betaken themselves to their farms, lying peacefully in the light of the setting sun. Universal silence reigned over the land.

Quiet as it was on working-days, at the close of the week it seemed sunk in meditation and silence; dominical truce that had its great significance, when weary souls refresh themselves, and whole families unite in calm and meditation to review their living and their dead.

But to-day the quiet was to be of short duration.

Mathurin and Andre were lying under the shade of the elms that afforded provisional shelter to the harrows and ploughs close by the old stonework gateway. The cripple, leaning against the cross-bars of a harrow, was resting after the fatigue and excitement of the morning.

Andre, from concern for him, had not gone into town again with his father, but lying at full-length on the gra.s.s was reading the paper aloud, pausing every now and then to make his comments on the news, and, as a travelled man, to explain the whereabouts of places and countries--Clermont Ferrand, India, j.a.pan, the while twirling his little fair moustache, a very youthful and ingenuous self-sufficiency showing itself in his frank, merry face. At about four o'clock, to the left of Sallertaine, was heard the sound of a bugle, coming apparently from the open marsh between the parishes of Lumineau and Seullans.

Mathurin roused from the torpor into which he had sunk, looked at Andre, who at the first sound of the bugle had let fall the paper, and with uplifted face and straining ears was listening to the call.

"It is the cadets," said his brother, "they are out this afternoon.

Soon they will be leaving."

"They are playing the call of the 'Cha.s.seurs d'Afrique,'" returned Andre, a light in his eyes. "I recognise it. Is there anyone of our old regiment in the Marais?"

"Yes, the son of a gooseherd in Fief; he served his time with the Zouaves."

They were silent, both men listening to the bugling of the ex-Zouave, their thoughts very different. Andre with eyes fixed on the distant marshland was seeing in imagination a white town, with narrow streets, and a troop of hors.e.m.e.n emerging from a crenulated gateway, its arches echoing with the ring of their horses' hoofs.

Mathurin, watching the expression on his brother's face, thought: "His heart is still with the regiment." For an instant his features distended, his eyes dilated as those of a wild beast detecting its prey, then he returned to his one idea.

"Driot," he exclaimed after a while, "you like that music?"

"I should think so."

"Do you regret the regiment?"

"No, that I don't. No one does."

"Then what was the attraction out there?"

The young man looked inquiringly into his brother's face as though to say, why should he want to know, then answered:

"The country----Hark! that's the reveille now."

The sounds of the bugle, sharp, incisive, stopped. Now five or six strong untrained voices struck up "Le chant du depart." Occasional words reached the listeners where they lay. "Mourir pour la patrie ...

le plus beau ... d'envie." The rest was lost in s.p.a.ce.

Meanwhile the sounds were approaching; the two brothers motionless under the elms, each pursuing the train of thought evoked by the first notes of the bugle, could hear the conscripts of Sallertaine coming up the hill towards them.

Toussaint Lumineau, on his way home from vespers with his friend Ma.s.sonneau, heard them also. Ma.s.sonneau, an old tenant farmer, tall and thin, with skin as dark as a ripe ear of corn, the cartilages of his neck standing out like the breast-bone of a fowl, had acquired his name of "Le Glorieux" from a nervous twitch he had, which caused his chin to jerk upwards at every instant; Lumineau and he were discussing the latest events of La Fromentiere. The two men represented the age and wisdom of the Marais; moreover, they could tell the names and nicknames of every living soul at Sallertaine, their history and parentage. As they reached the last houses of the town, both simultaneously stopped and turned their faces windward.

"Do you hear, Glorieux?" exclaimed Lumineau. "They are bugling and singing, poor boys! But the parents of those who are going may well weep."

"Yes," returned Ma.s.sonneau, with a twitch of the chin, "the parents are to be pitied."

"I could name them, everyone, from only hearing their lad's voices,"

continued Lumineau. "You, good people of La Bounellerie, and you, of Grand Paiement; you, of Juch-Pie; you, of Linotteries; and you, of Belle-Blanche, I recognise your boys' voices. May it not do the same work for them that it did for my Francois! They are going to the place that changed my boy's heart--to the town that robbed me of him."

"As it robbed La Pinconniere," said his companion.

"And Leverells."

"And Paree-du-Mont."

The litany might have been prolonged; Ma.s.sonneau hearing the voices at the edge of the Marais broke in with:

"They are singing again," he said, "they are going up the hill to you, Lumineau."

And in truth the young conscripts had begun the ascent towards La Fromentiere; soon the bugle call, soon their voices, resounded over the silent Marais, carried afar by the wind, like grains of seed falling everywhere. And everywhere, without apparent reason, emotions were stirred, old sorrows awoke, and the humble occupants of isolated farms or remote villages listened with a tightening of the heart to the tramp of the conscripts of Sallertaine.

As they reached the meadow-land of La Fromentiere, Mathurin, who had been following the sounds, and with his marvellous sense of observation had marked every step of their way, said to Andre:

"They have already halted at three farms. I think they must be collecting for their cla.s.s. You did not do that? For the last two years they have started calling at all the houses where there is a young girl of their own age, to ask her for a fowl as compensation for having to serve. Rousille is drawn among the other girls. You should catch a fowl to give them when they come."

"So I will," returned Andre, laughing and springing up with a bound.

"I'm off. What do they do with all the fowls?"

"Eat them. They get three or four farewell dinners out of them. Be quick! they are coming!"

Andre disappeared within the courtyard. Soon could be heard his merry laugh, and a rush in the direction of the barn, then the terrified cries of the fowl he had evidently caught; and soon he reappeared holding his prize by the legs, its round spotted wings, grey and white, rising and falling on the gra.s.s as he walked. At the same moment a blast on the bugle was heard at the foot of the dwarf orchard; Mathurin half-raised himself upon the harrow, his hands clasping the cross-bars, his arms extended, his s.h.a.ggy head bent forward, awaited the arrival of the troop, Andre standing beside him.

Opposite them, just at the opening of the road leading down to the Marais, the setting sun, an enormous ball tinted orange by the mist, filled the entire s.p.a.ce between the two treeless banks.

In this sun-bathed glory three girls advanced, arm-in-arm, up the ascent, the tallest in the middle; all were dressed in black with lace coifs; the jet on their velvet kerchiefs sparkling in the light. As they walked they rhythmically swayed their heads; they were girls from Sallertaine, but the light was behind them, and only Mathurin could recognise in the centre one Felicite Gauvrit. A few paces in the rear came the bugler, a standard-bearer, and five young men walking abreast, carrying either in their arms or suspended from a hempen cord the fowls collected from the farmhouses. The procession advanced some hundred yards along the road, then pulled up between the elms and the ruined wall of La Fromentiere.

"Good day, brothers Lumineau!" said a voice.

There was a burst of laughter from the band, excited by their march and the muscadet they had drunk on the way. The cripple's hands gave way, he glanced up at Andre.

Felicite Gauvrit, without leaving hold of her companions, had advanced slightly in front of them, and was gazing with a pleased expression at the youngest Lumineau, who held out the grey fowl to her.

"You guessed then, Andre?" she said. "Ah, that's what it is to have to do with intelligent boys. Here, Sosthene Pageot, come and take Rousille's fowl."

A st.u.r.dy lad with ruddy face, and the stupefied air of one beginning to feel the effects of drink, stepped out from among the others and took the fowl. But from the mocking att.i.tude of Andre, and his studied silence, Felicite guessed that he was surprised to see a girl of her position in such company, therefore she added carelessly:

"You may be satisfied that I do not range the Marais every day with conscripts. My doing it to-day is out of kindness. My two friends here, who belong to the cla.s.s, were called upon to go the round to collect; they are shy and dared not go alone, and so it must have been given up, had I not come to the rescue." She expressed herself well, with a certain refinement that came with the habit of reading.

"That would have been a pity!" said the young man coldly.

"Yes, would it not? The more so, that I am not often seen in your part of the world."

She turned her head towards the windows of La Fromentiere, the stables, the hayricks, sighed, then immediately remarked in a playful tone:

"You will come to one of our dances, will you not, Andre? The Maraichines hope so."

At this there were signs of approval to the right and left of her.

"Perhaps," replied Andre. "It is so long since I was at a dance in Sallertaine; inclination may return."